ignorance

Yesterday it was some bloke called OwenJones84 – kids have strange names these days – and today some bloke called Charlie Brooker displaying deeply problematic historical ignorance. This comment to his article in The Guardian says it all, really:

“Another ignorant Magna Carta based anti-Cameron rant. It’s good, put him down, but don’t let him drag you down with him. Get informed:

At the time of the Magna Carta – as enshrined in the Charter of the Forest – plebs, as it were, had close to something you could call full autonomy: that is, they had rights of access to and use of building materials, food surces and fuel – all of which they could clean from / collect or grow in the forest. They sustained themselves.

No dole office, just life.

That’s far more rights than plebs hold today, where most have primarily the rights to be surveilled by a totalitarian state apparatus, the right to eat shitty frozen, processed “fish” fingers, and to hand over the ownership of all their digital creations to, say, Facefuck or Twatter.

Brooker, you are talking out of your behind and that’s a shame. Sit on it and learn a bit. You are perpetuating the progressivist myth – central to the elite’s power game and the social-democractic programme of collaboration with the elite – that we are moving towards a better world, with more rights and a more rightful and comfortable existence. Nothing could be further from the truth!”

Just came across an ignorant statement on LSD in a blog to which I left a rushed comment; however, given the backward, ignorant position of the blogger it is most unlikely that the comment will ever pass moderation, so I thought I’d stick it up here, even if very rushed; but first a quote from the post:

ØLSD is a mind altering drug and the effects can last for up to 12 hours.

ØA person on LSD never knows if they are going to have a good trip or a bad trip.

ØLSD can cause hallucinations and loss of sense of direction and time.It can also cause thoughts of dying.

ØThere are reports of people who have never gotten over a bad trip and were impaired for many years after.

To which I quickly said:

This seems to me to be a rather superficial treatment of a highly complex substance – and does not add anything useful: kids want to try it because it is mind altering, – that’s the whole point of psychedelics.

There is no such thing as a good or bad trip – a proper psychedelic experience will most often include visions of the dark side. What’s so bad about looking into the painful, dark and sinister aspects or reality? Is it better to live in ignorant bliss and Homestore imagery?

Attaining hallucinations is also a key driving factor in taking hallucinogenic substances, obviously. The loss of sense of direction and time is yet another desirable effect. Any reflection on a deeper level ought to cause thoughts of dying: therein lies the revelatory potential to understand life (when juxtaposed with its only alternative).

The last point nails it: pure rhetoric! Did they “never” get over their bad trip, or were they “impaired for years”? Clearly a misleading statement based on lacking understanding.

More information and advice should be given to young people, no doubt about it, but “information” of this kind can only backfire, since any teenager who spends ten minutes googling the subject will realise that it is written in sheer ignorance and it will carry no sensible meaning for those who do so. It encourages unsafe use with the same level of understanding, or no understanding, really.